


did you see the stylish kids in the riot?

by Quietbang



Series: cause i got the right (to make it look as if i'm doing something with my life) [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Politics, Protests, Racism, the children are bad at Stuff and Things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-20 00:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5986639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quietbang/pseuds/Quietbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John and Alex met at protests, and one time they went on a date like normal human beings. </p><p> In which the children are 20-somethings who are both passionate about justice and very bad at feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. February 2012

**Author's Note:**

> Some of you may recognise this as the flashback previously included in _(and we'll die in) the class we were born_. I removed it because I wanted it to be part of a larger fic, and because it didn't really fit tonally with the rest of the story.

He didn't mean to run him over. 

In John's defense, it was dark, and rainy, and Alexander hadn't exactly been paying attention to his surroundings either. 

Still, the facts are these: 

* It was after one in the morning on an icy Tuesday in February, and John was at another fucking candlelight vigil for another fucking dead kid, because it never fucking ends. 

* The sleet was blowing brutally, penetrating his beanie and gloves and plastering his hair to the back of his neck. Most of the actual candles had burned out or fallen victim to the wet, and the only light that remained were the electric tealights and flashlights used in place of some candles. 

* A quiet tension had broken out after a few early clashes with police. The remaining mourners were huddled under umbrellas. Most of the youngest and most hot-headed activists had gone home to the relative safety of their apartments, leaving groups of tired men and women with a median age of fifty. They faced a line of crowd control barriers, a thin line between them and a line of cops in full riot gear. 

* A group of volunteers with the Red Cross intermittently passed out hand warmers and water and were greeted with a cheer usually reserved for a magic trick. 

* Every so often, threads of prayer and mournful hymns caught on the wind. 

* At the urging of his mother, John also sported a large button declaring himself a volunteer with the Red Cross --  

 _"They won't shoot a congressman's son, Mamá. The NYPD can't stand that kind of press."_  
"I’m not sure they're going to take the time to ask who your Papi is, mijo."  
\--  
and had his hood pulled down low over his brow to keep the rain off his face. 

* Alexander was huddled under a plastic poncho on the ground, nearly invisible in the darkness.  

  
All this combined to mean that, as John mounted his bike to get back to his apartment, he didn't see the other man on the ground, had no chance to see him in fact until they collided with a rather wet thud.

John was suddenly aware of several things at the same time.

1) He was on the ground, muddy taste of ashpalt on his tongue, limbs tangled hopelessly in his bike frame.

2)He was being cussed out with an impressive volume and fluidity

3) oh fuck oh fuck he just _hit_ a guy. 

"Shit, dude," John said as he tried to disentangle himself from his bike. "Are you ok?"

"Am I fucking ok?" The other man said, "You just hit me with your fucking _bike_ , man."

"I'm so, so sorry." John finally succeeded in righting himself, spitting bits of gravel out his mouth. "I'm with the Red Cross, um-- are you injured?"

"You hit me with your fucking bike." 

"I know, and I'm really sorry about that." He crouched down in front of the man, who was nursing his right side protectively, gravel and blood on his face. "Did you hit your head?"

"Did _you_ hit _my_ head, you mean? Nah, I scraped it on the ground when you knocked me over, but you actually hit my fucking shoulder." 

"Let me see," John made to examine the shoulder, but the man flinched back. 

"Shit, man, seriously, it's my job, ok?" John pointed at the badge affixed to the outside of his coat. "My name is John Laurens, I in the middle of Step Two at Columbia Med. I know first aid, and I'm actually legally obligated to help you, so." 

"The Good Samaritan Law is never held up in court," the man muttered. He seemed to reach a decision. "Hamilton. Alexander Hamilton. And forgive me for not wanting to take off my coat, in the freezing rain, for a guy who just ran me over. I don't care how cute you are, that shit's fucked up." 

"Please," John said. "Let me just make sure that it's not broken or dislocated." 

After a long moment, Hamilton nodded and pulled at the sleeve of his rain poncho. "You can look. Don't touch." 

"I swear, dude," John said reflexively, as he schooled his face into professional neutrality. The other man was clutching his shoulder tightly -- a recent surgical scar made puffy and red by the rain and impact was obscured by some pretty intense road rash. "Can you raise your arm above your head?"

"Not on my best day, dude." Hamilton avoided his eye. "That arm's fucked." 

John winced. "Then I'm sorry, really I am, but I'm gonna have to touch it. Just to make sure that everything's just bruised. If it’s not you can disinfect it yourself, but I’d really like to bandage it. There’s a lot of dirt in there.” 

Hamilton nodded his assent, and John pulled off his now-soaked fingerless gloves, pulling out a pair of clean nitrile ones from his coat pocket. He carefully palpated the joint, but the scar tissue made it difficult to get a clean examination. After a minute, he nodded. 

"It's hard for me to tell without knowing your baseline, but it doesn't feel too bad. You should get it x-rayed, though. I'll give you my insurance details, hang on." 

"I'm not doing that." 

“You really should, the scar tissue makes it hard to get a clean exam.” 

“I’m not doing that. End of story.” He glared at him from beneath his glasses, the lenses smeared with blood and mud. A few locks of curly hair had escaped from their tight bun, and bits of sleet were collecting on the strands. It was really unfairly attractive. 

John sighed. "Then, you could let me buy you a coffee to make up for it? Seriously dude, I feel really bad about this." 

"Fine," Hamilton said after a minute. "Just give me a hand up."

They ended up in an all-night diner, the kind of place with a tarnished storefront and sticky formica whose land is worth ten times the value of the store itself, but which nonetheless refused to be bought out by developers.

They settled themselves in a booth at the back, pot of strong black coffee between them. 

"I always wonder how places like these stay open," John said after a minute. "The real estate value alone would be more than enough to retire on." 

Alex shook his head. "I know the owner -- Maita will never retire, I think she might die in the back room of this place." he sipped at his coffee. "So, Columbia Med, huh? I just started at Columbia myself." 

John immediately felt like a creepy old man. "You're a freshman? Please don't tell me I just ran over an 18 year old."

Alex raised an eyebrow and ran his left hand through his wet curls. "You didn't run over an 18 year old. I got started late, I guess. Wanted to make Uncle Sam pay my way." 

John rolled his eyes. "Are you telling me that it's ok, I didn't run over an 18 year old, I only ran over a _veteran_? I'm pretty sure that isn't better." 

Alex laughed. "It’s ok, I won’t spread it around. Thanks for the coffee, but I should get back to the vigil.” 

“Dude, it’s two in the morning. I think you can go home without feeling guilty.” 

Alex shook his head. “Nah. Someone should -- I think it’s important that as many people as possible stay. Both because I don’t want someone to take a picture of a near-empty street and tweet about how low the turnout was, nevermind that there were a couple thousand there today, and because I think there should be witnesses.” 

John frowned. “You think it’s gonna get bloody? It’s been relatively calm so far.”  
This was true -- they had been roughed up a little, shoved a bit, but no true “crowd control” in the form of gas or horses or rubber bullets. 

“No, I just mean--” He seemed to struggle with his words for a moment, rubbed at the ashy purple circles under his eyes. “I hate the idea that this shit is like, ephemeral. And the more people that are there, the more people that see, the more people that are around, the harder it is for people to forget.” He drained his coffee. “I guess I can’t think of anything worse than dying and not being remembered.” 

John could think of several things that were worse than that, but he decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

Before he could say anything, Alex stood up.  
“Thanks for the coffee. If it gets me a hot drink with a cute guy, maybe I should get run over more often.” He touched John’s shoulder, letting his hand linger a fraction too long to be platonic. “Hope I’ll see you around.” 

With that, he left, leaving John staring after him until his slight figure was completely obscured by the foggy night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which nobody has any chill whatsoever.

John would be lying if he said that he didn't occasionally regret the circumstances under which he had left South Carolina. 

As is the nature of regrets, they most frequently found him at 3 am after he collapsed, exhausted, onto his slightly sagging mattress and found himself unable to sleep. They were usually banished by the sunrise. 

All of which is to say that the sight of a letter addressed in his father's secretary's neat hand did not so much fill him with trepidation as it did a mixture of anxiety and uneasy guilt. He sat on the edge of his bed, sweat beading on his brow, and ripped it open with an unsteady hand. 

He pulled a cheque out of the envelope, and stared at it for a moment, eyes blurring.

> To: John Laurens Amount: Two Thousand Five Hundred  
>  Memo: re: your recent birthday  
> 

The cheque itself was filled in with Carmen's practiced hand, but the signature, at least, was Henry's own and not simply stamped. That was something, right?

And it was the right day – or nearly, anyway – and given the tone of most of their interactions in the weeks leading up to their estrangement, it was probably the closest thing to an olive branch that Henry Laurens was capable of extending while leaving his pride intact. 

He should call his father and thank him. If nothing else, he should acknowledge the olive branch for what it was. 

However. 

Nothing came without strings – that was the first lesson he had ever been taught about politics, and he had learned it well – and depositing the cheque would be a statement of concession – or at least an acknowledgement of a cessation of hostilities. He wasn't sure he wanted that. He wasn't sure if his father had a right to demand that of him. 

On the other hand, he could scratch it out, write void across it, mail it back. Likely, though, his father would never actually see it, and he wouldn't notice that the money never left his account. It wasn't like he opened his own mail. 

There was a third option, the emotionally satisfying if poorly thought out plan to sign the lot of it over to a charity for some cause that his father would absolutely _hate_. There was a labour justice group on 200th that did some great work – and his father had always been particularly snide in his dismissal of a teenage John's outrage at the treatment of migrant labourers. 

Or he could cash it. He was hardly destitute – his mother had cosigned on loans that covered his tuition, and occasionally she would be overcome with a fit of maternal affection and have a shipment of groceries show up at the front door of his building to the bewilderment of his roommates – but he could get his computer fixed, get a nice haircut, experience any of the dozens of tiny luxuries that he hadn't ever noticed until they were gone. 

He sighed as his phone beeped urgently, and he glanced down to the reminder that "no bro you actually have to leave now", as a friend had programmed in after he was late for his lectures in second year twice. He was on rotation now. If he was late, there would be actual consequences. 

He stuffed the cheque into his wallet and swung his bag up over his shoulder, banishing all thoughts of his father from his mind as he straightened his back and ran out the door, smoothly transitioning from "John Laurens, exhausted and confused 20 something" to "John Laurens, med student on his surgical rotation who absolutely knows what he's doing”. 

He spent the next 30 hours in the hospital oscillating between shadowing an increasingly gruff Dr Franklin as he performed a series of urgent operations and trying desperately to catch a few consecutive minutes of sleep in the on-call room. The numb focus that permeated all shifts longer than twelve hours was exactly what he needed, and he didn't think about the cheque at all. 

After his shift was up he declined several offers of drinks and food from the other med students and muttered something about studying before he walked out into the muggy New York morning, blinking at the sudden heat after the air conditioned cool of the hospitals. 

He checked his watch. Shift change had been at 7 AM, and he had dawdled slightly in the locker room -- he really should go home and sleep, get some real sleep, the kind in a bed that wasn't interrupted by calamity every twenty minutes and he didn't have to fear being interrogated on the functions of the Bowman's capsule by a testy attending. 

Instead, he pulled out his phone and shot off a quick text to Angelica Schuyler

 _u up?_

He began to walk aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the transition between the night shift and the day shift. A seemingly endless stream of exhausted janitors, nurses, and municipal workers streamed out of every building in the hospital district, bumping up against harried-looking business people in suits headed into work and the slow but steady trickle of nannies escorting older children to subway stops while balancing infants and toddlers in strollers. 

His phone buzzed almost immediately. 

_Would the extra two letters really have hurt you? I'm up but it's my day off, so unless someone's bleeding I think I'm going back to bed._

John snorted. Angelica had a prestigious internship at Conde Nast – part of the small army of unpayed media interns subsidised by wealthy parents on the Upper East Side – and even if it was her day off she would have already been on her computer for at least an hour. People with her level of ambition didn't really take days off. 

He shot back 

_What if I buy you breakfast? :-)_

\--  
_Please don't put noses on your smiley faces. It's alarming. Fine. 20 minutes, 172 and Broadway. See you there._

John was surprised at her choice of restaurant to say the least – both because it was an out-of-the-way, grungy establishment whose clientele didn't seem to be there seeking hipster cachet or lured by a positive write-up in Gothamist, and because it was the coffee shop that he had taken Alexander to back in February. 

And yes, it was weird that he remembered which restaurant that was, and probably weirder that although he had ascertained that the other man was very active on Twitter he had refrained from actually following him, having feared that googling a man you ran over with your bike was somehow crossing the line. 

Angelica somehow got there beforehand, somehow dressed immaculately despite the heat and early hour, hair falling onto her bare shoulders in perfect curls. 

"Still in bed my ass, Angelica," he said playfully. "If you were still in bed then this --" here he gestured at her outfit "-- is some kind of witchcraft." 

"A lady never reveals her secrets," Angelica said with an undignified snort. "Now c'mon, I'm hungry and you promised me breakfast." 

As they walked in the bell above the door jangled and a harried voice shouted from the kitchen "I'll be  
with you in a minute!" 

They slid into stools at the bar, avoiding a rather boisterous game of dominoes currently occupying the back two tables. 

"So why this place?" John asked curiously. 

Angelica raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I mean it's out of the way and let's be real – it's not very... you." 

She raised both of her eyebrows. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean." 

John met her gaze flatly, and she laughed. "Fine, fair. Eliza and I come here all the time – she loves it. I'm pretty sure she has a crush on one of the servers." 

"Aww, young love," John said in a singsong voice. 

Angelica whacked him on the arm. "Don't talk about my sister like that. And why did you summon me,  
anyway? Didn't you just get off being on-call?"

John nodded. 

"Then you should be asleep in your sketchy fuck-you-dad apartment, not down here buying me breakfast." 

John snorted. "Speaking of my 'fuck-you-dad apartment', check this out." He pulled the check from his wallet and laid it out on the peeling formica bar. "That arrived before my shift started." 

She picked it up and raised her eyebrows. "Wow. That's pretty impersonal, even for blood money." 

John laughed out loud. "I'm so happy to hear you say that – I was worried you were going to tell me it was an olive branch." 

Angelica raised an eyebrow. "John, have you ever met a politician before? Just curious." 

Before he could respond in kind, her eyes brightened. "Oh, great, this is the guy --- Alexander, how you doing this morning? This is my friend John." 

A short, slight man in an apron blinked at the pair of them with wide black eyes. His tawny skin was flushed from heat and beads of sweat were collecting along his hairline from a tight ponytail of thick black curls. He scrubbed at his face with a tea towel from the pocket of his apron, and wrinkled his eyebrows. 

"Bro -- aren't you the guy who ran over me with his bike?"

John felt his stomach drop out of him. 

"Um, maybe? I'm still really sorry about that, by the way." 

Alexander smirked. "Yeah, I bet you are." He turned to Angelica, face brightening. "Why, Ms Schuyler. A pleasure as always to see you gracing our humble establishment." 

"Alright, lay it on a little more, loverboy," Angelica laughed. "We'll start with some coffee, please." 

Two chipped ceramic mugs of coffee were placed in front of them, laden with cream and sugar. 

Alexander leaned his hip against the bar as he watched them take their first sips. 

" 's good, right? Secret recipe." 

Angelica's lips quirks. "I'm pretty sure your 'secret' recipe is enough cream and sugar to give an elephant insulin poisoning." 

He laughed, a short sharp bark. "A magician never tells." 

He was smiling, his cheeks flushed with amusement and the heat, and his eyes sparkled with intelligence. 

A propos of nothing, John felt himself start to blush.  
"It's good to see you. Again, I mean. When you're not, um. Bleeding." 

John was going to kill himself. Could he sound any more idiotic? He was a smart man, for Christ's sake. 

Luckily, the other man laughed, even as Angelica rolled her eyes. "I'm pretty fond if it myself. I've got this strange condition where I really prefer to keep my blood _inside_ my body, I'm crazy like that." 

John grinned back tentatively. "You might need different hobbies, then." 

"I'll take it under consideration. Do you two want food, or did you just come here to flirt with my charming self?"

"I don't think it counts if you call _yourself_ charming, Alex," Angelica said. 

"Sure it does," he said easily. "Who's gonna stop me, the charming police? No thank you." 

"I'll have the special, thanks," John said. 

Angelica gave her order, and Alex sauntered -- sauntered! -- back into the kitchen. 

As soon as he was out of sight, Angelica hissed "Stop flirting with the waiter, John." 

"You started it," John hissed back. "Besides, I know him! Kind of." 

"By which you mean you ran over him with your bike," she said dryly having been told the story many times in the three months since the vigil. Sometimes, John reflected, Angelica really did have the patience of a saint. 

"Well, yeah, but I bought him a coffee afterwards. At this very place, actually." 

She snorted. "Right. Obviously you formed a very deep connection." 

"Well if we didn't that night, I'm happy to put the work in," Alex said as he sauntered back to the bar. "Also -- you are not very good at whispering." 

John's face was burning. "I'm -- I mean -- um -- I'm sorry." 

"Don't be," Alex said with a hand wave. "A man needs to get his entertainment somewhere. Are you going to the march _Proyecta Defensa Laboral_ is putting on on Sunday?"

John shrugged. "I don't know too much about it, to be honest. Med school can sort of eat you, sometimes." 

Alex nodded. "I can't say I know what you mean, but I believe you. I can send you the info if you want -- I'm off at four, but I'm bartending a private party down on West 66th tonight. So why don't you give me your number or whatever, and then I can pass it along?"

John nodded. "Uh, yeah, sure -- you can add me on facebook if you want?"

His palms were sweating. 

Alex grinned. "Sure." He passed his phone over—a slightly clunky Motorolla with the strange rollerball trackpad that had been all the rage when smartphones first came out. 

John entered his number in quickly, and then pulled out his own phone and passed it to Alex. When they exchanged phones, their fingertips just barely touched. 

Alex smiled, a small soft smile at odds with the rest of his appearance. He looked down at his phone. 

"John Laurens," he said, rolling the name around on his tongue like pork crackling. "I'll be in touch." 

A shout from the back broke the strange softness that had descended over them, and Alex seemed to realize that he had been leaning into John's personal space because he straightened to a rigid military posture. "I'll just go grab your food then," Alex said, answering the shouts in rapid french as he walked. 

After breakfast, John walked Angelica to her subway stop. "Do you think I should cash it?"

To her credit, Angelica didn't pretend to misunderstand his meaning. "If I were you, I'd be taking that sucker for all he's worth. Consider it reparations if that makes you feel any better.' 

"He's just doing it to have something over me and to embarrass my mother, though." 

"Your mom's the Dean of Nursing at CUNY, John – she's not exactly slumming it. And of course that's what he's doing – it doesn't mean you have to let him. It's only something to hold over you if you let it be. "

John laughed softly. "You certainly have a way with words, Angelica."

"Thanks, it's literally my job. Now go cash that cheque, text the cute boy, and get some sleep, for God's sake. I don't know how you're still standing, personally." 

"Practice, mostly," John said dryly. "Thanks, though. See you around." 

"See you." 

And with that, she disappeared beyond the turnstile, and John sighed. 

He spent the train ride home scrolling idly through Alex's Facebook photos – a few artfully posed selfies, dark eyes looking out soulfully from a curtain of hair, several of him holding a megaphone on a raised platform addressing a crowd, and one of him on a well-made cot in a heavy canvas tent, hunched over his laptop with the top two buttons of his army uniform undone. 

It was tagged from someone else – a Gilbert Lafayette – who had helpfully added the caption "@Alexander Hamilton may not know what 'off duty' means." 

It was followed by a screenshot of a game of Civilisation, which was again tagged "@Alexander Hamilton I stand corrected." 

He smiled. 

His wall posts were much the same. It seemed to be mostly links to articles he or someone else had written, several posts about a Marco that made John's breath catch until he used context clues to piece to ether that Marco was, in fact, a dog, and a few entreaties to come to this or that club where a friend was DJing. 

He almost missed his stop when he dug up Alex's Instagram, and so instead he shoved his phone in his back pocket and promised himself to stop cyber-stalking the nice man. 

His phone buzzed as he let himself into his apartment building. 

_From: Alex Hamilton  
I'm on break and I thought I would send you a link to the protest I mentioned. http://bit.ly/jstice4maria_

_PDL are organising it. They're awesome._

_People are meeting in front of City Hall at 7:00AM on Sunday for a rally and then a short march._

_You should come :-)_  
  
The texts came in rapid succession and John couldn't stop himself from grinning. 

He stepped inside his apartment, the quiet and the faintness of the smell of weed alerting him to the fact that Charles was clearly out. 

Slinging his bag onto the couch, he stumbled through the apartment to his room and yanked open the window, pulling off his shirt and pants as he did so. 

Once the window was open and he was in only his boxers, he threw himself down on the mattress to read. 

Before he could get very far, his phone buzzed again. 

_  
This is the right number, right?_

_John?_

_Oh shit, if this isn't your number I'm so sorry to whoever actually does have this number. I thought I_  
had a chance with this guy but I guess he gave me a fake number ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  


John snorted and quickly replied  
_  
You got the right phone number. This is John. Sorry, I was on the train._

He laughed at the string of excited emojis he got back, and proceeded to read through the details of the march. 

It was in the name of Maria Gonzales, an undocumented cleaning lady at the Radisson who had been killed in an accident with the industrial wrangler. Witnesses said that she had been working for more than 12 hours and that none of them had been provided with special training for how to use the machine, which used heated rollers to quickly and automatically iron sheets or, in this case, Maria's arm and face. 

She had sustained 3rd degree burns and died of her wounds, and the hotel chain refused to pay out benefits to her three children. 

Investigation by the WDL/PDL had revealed that the Radisson contracted out their cleaning to a maid service used by several high-end hotels as well as City Hall, and that they had a history of accusations of negligence and labour abuse.  
The most serious allegation was that the service – and by extension, all the institutions which contracted said service – were hiring undocumented women, failing to train them or remunerate them adequately, and threatening to report them to Immigration if they complained. 

The march was being organised by the WDL/PDL, with the speeches scheduled so early in the morning on a Sunday that workers from both the night and day shifts should be able to catch at least part of it, and still not interfere with 10:00 Mass. 

John read all of the information about the march and the case that incited it he could find, feeling the knot of guilt and shame start to grow larger against his ribcage. He wondered, suddenly, if there had been similar allegations against the agency his father had used after his mother left, if the revolving cast of middle aged and elderly Black and Latina women who cleaned their house, cooked their meals, and raised his siblings had even made the minimum wage. What about their families? Had they had children? He didn't know. He had never asked. 

Even as a teen when he became aware of the very concept of 'labour rights' he had been all-too-aware of the horrible living conditions experienced by the small army of Dominican and Jamaican men on work visas who came to pick tobacco on the farms his father owned. 

He had joined them a couple times, punishment from his father for some real or perceived slight, and by 10 am his hands had started to bleed and his back had ached so badly he had had to go into the barns for a rest. 

He picked up his phone.  
_  
I will be there. Hope I see you . ;-)_

He spent a long time lying awake on his bed, listening to the street sounds and trying to remember the name of every nanny he and his siblings had ever had. 

\---  
Sunday came after a string of 24 and 30 hour shifts, and by 6:30AM on Sunday he felt as though a stiff wind would knock him over. 

He texted Alex to let him know that he was there, which he did not respond to. John felt a knot of anxiety grow in his stomach until he spotted a familiar figure pacing by the crowd-control barriers, speaking rapid Spanish into his cell phone. 

He cut himself off when he saw John, and with a muttered goodbye hung up. "You made it!" 

"I did indeed," he said easily. "No pocket warmers this time, but I brought water bottles." 

Alex laughed, and John decided then and there that it was his mission in life to hear that laugh more often. 

"You can take the boy out of the Red Cross, but you can't take the Red Cross out of the boy?"

John smirked. "Something like that. What's got you pacing like a wounded lionness, hmm?"

Alex blinked. "That's quite a simile. And nothing, we've just had a bigger turnout than I expected, and apparently a counter-protest is forming, and they're not quite as dedicated as we are to non-violence." He shrugged. "I guess most of _their_ protesters can get arrested without being sent to a literal prison camp." 

John nodded, at a loss for words. "So what do you do?"

Alex shrugged helplessly. "I just got off the phone with one of the organisers -- My only role really has been logistics, they did the rest, but unfortunately it's logistics that is going to fuck us up really badly." He ran his hands through his hair, and sighed. "We were just arguing over whether or not we cancel the protest. There's not really a good outcome there, media wise. Either we cancel the protest and we're weak and scared of regular citizens, or we carry on and when there's violence it's all on us." 

"What do you think you should do?"

"I think that cancelling this now is more trouble than it's worth. Half the attendees would have to walk past the counter-protest anyway, and people will get hurt. If people are gonna get hurt, I want there to be a damn good reason for it." 

Joh nodded slowly, a germ of an idea floating in his head. "Your concern is perception?"

Alex shrugged. "Pretty much. I mean, obviously I'd rather nobody get seriously hurt, but I think that if someone jumps up on that stage right now and warns everyone not to let the counter-protesters to provoke them and tells them that anyone who fear for their well-being can leave now then we might just squeak through on a legal angle, anyway. But I don't want this to be up on Gawker as, like, the protest that wasn't." 

"Why don't you give me the number of one of the organisers, and I'll pass it along to Angelica, who can pass it along to people at Salon and Gawker and NPR and any other slightly left-leaning media outlet. They'll embed a few hapless interns, and that way they'll at least have your perspective if things get ugly." 

Alex nodded and handed John his phone. "Pass Gloria's number along to Angelica. It's the first number in my missed calls." 

By the time the speeches began, a handful of bloggers and journalists had joined the crowd, tapping at their iPhones. John listened in awe as a man recounted his tale of trying to form a chapter of UNITE-HERE for the janitors in City Hall and being summarily dismissed. He was followed by a diminutive woman who spoke only in rapid Spanish and recounted being forced by the maid service she worked for to finish cleaning the house she was working on after her water broke if she didn't want to lose her job. 

The speeches had been scheduled carefully -- the first half an airing of grievances, followed by stories from the same perspective about how to successfully organise. At one point, pamphlets were distributed throughout the crowd in English and Spanish outlining legal rights as related to labour and immigration. 

The final speaker was a 60ish Black woman with a regal demeanour and a thick Jamaican accent. 

"I've been doing this job in this city for 50 years," she said emphatically. "50 years! And it makes my heart sick to see girls younger than my own grandchildren fall victim to the same violence, the same injustice, that I saw when I started. Things are supposed to be better now! Where would they be if we stopped working, hmm? If the people who clean the floors and do the laundry and empty the trash and care for the children left, what would they do? I been working for the same man for near on 20 years, and bless him but I don't think he knows how to turn on the washing machine. 

I tell my kids all the time, there is power in community. When God and man come together as neighbors against evil, evil cannot triumph.  
God rest the soul of Miss Maria Gonzalez, and God save her children. In their name let's make sure this don't happen to anyone again so that her weary soul can finally rest. " 

There were cheers from the crowd at that, more than a few signs of the cross, and as she stepped down from the stage with the assistance of her cane thin strains of song drifted through the crowd. 

 

John Periscoped the whole thing. 

And then it all went to hell. The marches overlapped, as the counter-protestors had no doubt planned. Angry young white men shouted slurs and threw rocks, and the police seemed singularly uninterested in stopping them. 

John was furious. The crowd had clearly been given explicit instructions not to engage, and the woman who had spoken at the end of the rally stood with her spine erect and face blank as a young man shouted at her from inches away. 

(The picture of the incident, snapped by a freelance reporter for Buzzfeed, would be on the front page of the Times the next day.) 

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" John shouted at the boy. "How would your mother feel hearing you talk like that to a lady?"

"She don't care what I say to a fucking--"

"-- don't finish that sentence, boy." John snapped, feeling adrenaline flood his veins and a faint mist descend upon his vision. 

A firm hand on his arm pulled him back and to the side, as Alex stepped between him and the boy. 

"John, don't," he hissed. "Maybe you can afford to get arrested, I don't know. But I can't, and she can't --" pointing to the diminutive woman who had spoken second "-- and a hell of a lot of people here can't. But we're also not gonna let them throw rocks at elders, so we'd best move to the front." 

And with that, Alex grabbed Johns hand. 

John was confused until he glanced to the side and realised that the organisers had planned for this, that a human shield of young and middle aged men had formed between the two groups. 

Maybe it was outdated chivalry, but John was pretty sure it was at least partly because he wasn't the only young man who was moved to violence at the sight of these assholes attacking grandmothers.

"Hold on tight, John" Alex managed to whisper in his ear. John heard it over the sounds of the crowd, over the shouting of the protesters and the distant wailing of police sirens. It was as though his every follicle was attuned to Alex's voice, like his heartbeat beat in time to its soft lilting cadence. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are interested in what you can do to protect migrant and undocumented labourers in your area, this is a great publication from the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants : http://picum.org/picum.org/uploads/file_/PICUM_Ten_Ways_to_Protect_Undocumented_Migrant_Workers.pdf  
> Also search "the name of your city or region + migrant labor" and "the name of your city or region + worker protections" to see how you can get involved at the local level.


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